Chapter 1
FULL STORY: My parents worshipped my sister. When I revealed my pregnancy, they st:ruck my stomach. "The first grandchild must be hers!
PART 1
My parents worshipped my sister. When I revealed my pregnancy, they st:ruck my stomach. "The first grandchild must be hers! Get rid of it!" Then... someone unexpected arrived. Mom went white and started shaking. It was...
"The first grandchild has to be Courtney's!"
My mother screamed, her voice ripping through the dining room.
"Get rid of it!"
Then she charged straight at me.
Just seconds earlier, everything had looked like an ordinary family dinner.
Three hours before, Courtney had learned that her fourth IVF cycle had failed.
The moment I stepped into the house, I knew something was terribly wrong. Courtney had bu:ried her sw0llen eyes beneath fresh makeup. Zachary sat so close to her he looked less like a husband and more like a shield. My father kept his head down, carving the roast with intense concentration, refusing to look at anyone.
And my mother... She was smiling. Too brightly.
I knew that smile better than anyone. The calmer she looked on the outside, the more vi0lent the storm raging within.
Click.
Click.
Her silverware tapped against the porcelain plate like the final seconds of a countdown.
Beneath the table, I squeezed Luke's knee.
Don't.
Not tonight.
But Luke had carried this secret for eleven weeks.
He raised his wine glass.
"Actually... we have some wonderful news."
Time froze.
Courtney's head snapped up. My father's carving knife stopped in midair. And for the first time in twenty-nine years... My mother's face became perfectly, terrifyingly still.
"I'm pregnant."
Silence swallowed the room. Courtney was the first to move.
She wrapped her arms around me, tears still clinging to her cheeks.
"Oh, Danielle..."
Her voice carried two emotions no one should ever have to feel at once, heartbreaking grief and genuine happiness for her little sister.
Then my mother slowly rose to her feet.
"Today?" she whispered.
"You chose today?"
Her voice climbed higher with every word.
"Four rounds... four failures! After everything we've sacrificed... after everything I've paid for... you bring this into my house?"
She pointed straight at my stomach.
"The first grandchild has to be Courtney's! It has to be hers!"
My mother came around the table fast.
Unnaturally fast.
Luke was rising from his chair.
Zachary was rising.
Nobody was fast enough.
Because nobody at that table, not one of us, not even me, the professional weather reader, could logically compute what was already happening.
She grabbed my left shoulder with her left hand, anchoring me.
And she swung her right fist vi0lently into my stomach.
Low. Deliberate. Exactly where the baby was. Screaming, "Get rid of it!"
One blow.
I want to be clinically accurate. One.
It knocked the oxygen completely out of my lungs.
I folded heavily over the arm of my chair.
The chair slid out from under me, and I ended up on my knees on my mother’s expensive dining room carpet.
I wrapped both arms tightly around my middle, gasping for air.
Somewhere very far above me, the room was vi0lently exploding.
